Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Can this sick planet find a circle of care?

There is a strong series of currents that are
pushing back against the tide of corporatism in which the world has been
engulfed for more than a decade.
How business operates, in a playing field of their own making, (through the
removal of regulations, controls and legitimate limits by the politicians they
fund) is akin to the law of the jungle, ‘everyone for himself and may the
strongest only win.’

In words, on a page, that last series of words seems
quite benign, devoid of blood, and certainly devoid of mortal confusion. We all
agree, it seems, that competition in the marketplace is a given, even a
requisite for the market to operate freely. And we have watched as the former
restrictions and controls on Wall Street have been lifted and how the financial
services sector has plunged the world economy into the deepest depression since
1929. And while the world’s media covered the collapse, the conditions for
another massive sell-off, accompanied by a debt-recall by China on all those
U.S. Treasury Bills, continues to hang over our heads.

It is not only the Greek economy that has been, and
continues to be, propped up with money from outside the country. For more than
a decade, the United States has been borrowing money from the Chinese
government, while at the same time depending on the infusion of “quantitative
easing” from the Federal Reserve, only now being slowed. A century ago, the
American/European economies dominated in the world, with a lagging ‘developing
world’ or less charitably, a ‘third world’ accounting for a small portion of
economic activity. Today, however, we
see a reversal of that equation, with both Europe and America accounting for
less than half the world’s economic activity, and the former ‘developing world’
moving to the forefront.

Simultaneously, the amassing of wealth in the hands
of a small few has proceeded unimpeded for decades, as these hedge fund
managers rode a tide of globalization, mergers and mega-mergers across the
globe. Into this scene enter a large group of risk-taking, ambitious, and
highly dangerous operators who, while growing rich and now demanding respect
because they are rich, could care less about rules, regulations and playing by
those rules. Money and the hands that own and control it will find
opportunities to grow whether or not there are rules and regulations that
preserve the public good, and whether or not there are states which have
eliminated the kind of corruption we have been reading about for decades in
developing countries.Ambition, greed,
risk-taking that simply ignores or bribes anyone or any government attempting
to reign it in, the extraction of resources and the running free of all of
these unleashed forces make a cocktail unfit for the faint of heart. Link all
of those factors to a desperate masculinity (and most hedge-fund managers,
money brokers, and high-end investors are still masculine) and we are
witnessing an growing potential for a series of events that stretch the
definition of “market correction” beyond its bounds. A brief predictive
diagnosis might include:

·An
implosion of credit,

·A
rise of political impotence,

·thuggery
and corruption on both the open market and the black market that is fueled by
decades of a kind of ‘wild west’ playing field,

·a
deep internet which even the designers cannot penetrate, where the thugs deal
with impunity

·western
governments that are pre-occupied with ISIS and it many faces,

·a
mass migration of displaced and dispossessed fighting for their lives,

·dictators
like Assad, Putin, and the Ayatollah of Iran, and Kim Jung Un....

·and
a United Nations that has the power merely to persuade, without either an army
or a police unless and until members countries consent,

and while the disease might not have a name or a
preventive or curative prescription, it also overlays an body politic whose
environment has plunged into suffocation, temperatures that are off the
thermometer and political indifference that defies comprehension.

In the hospitals, something known as a “circle of
care” has emerged, linking all care-givers of a specific patient in a ‘need to
know’ bond, that effectively and ethically opens all practitioners to
information necessary for the full diagnosis and treatment plan for that
patient. Clearly, if the global political economic social cultural and
religious unity were a single patient (and for this argument we are making that
analogy) then a circle of care would have to involve all leaders and all
citizens, and it would also depend upon a communication industry that was not
muzzled by any power brokers, financial agents, advertisers, investors or any
other colluding conspirators. When the banks, the investment community and the
political operatives are all drinking the same koolaid from the same shared
cup, there is no chance for the patient (the global society) to survive without
serious changes.

·Divesting
all television, internet media corporations and snail mail of private money, (the opposite
direction the Harper Conservatives want to take the CBC), and

·investing a much greater portion of national
budgets in education in order to guarantee all young people a full and relevant
education (robbing from the military),

·creating
world food programs supported by tax levies from all wealthy nations that would
through monitoring refuse to permit starvation on all continents,

·opening
the vault of secret information that would yield the account names of all
squirreled money in Swiss or other bank accounts, thereby requiring all account
holders to pay their fair share of taxes in the country of their head offices
or the residence of their CEO’s,

·securing
the signature of all wealthy nations to the International Criminal
Court, Interpol, an international Secret Service that would not be beholden to
a national government but to the United Nations

·generating
an empowered negotiating/mediating/arbitrating agency under the United Nations,
supported by all member states, that would and couldbring warring parties, including ISIS, Assad,
North Korea, Japan, China, Putin, to a table for full disclosure, and an agreed
procedure for pre-empting military conflict, and for foreclosing such conflicts
as soon after they have begun as is feasible

·securing
the signatures of all developed and developing nations to a global currency
from which no nation would depart, without suffering compelling sanctions

·negotiating
an arms limitation cap on all nations that would have as its long-term goal,
the complete elimination of all nuclear, chemical, biological and cyber
weapons, with open and accessible international sanctions for crossing this red
line protecting humanity

·negotiating
a global cap to the emission of carbon dioxide emissions, including a series of
punitive measures that would compel compliance, based on a full disclosure of
the destruction already wreaked on the eco-systems of the planet

·re-educating
the world’s public on the required limits to private finance and corporate
profits, including a global commitment to cap executive compensation.....

These are just a few of
the many initiatives that our collective future needs and expects if we are to
relieve the pressures of economic, military, and hegemonic abuse of power...and
the west is clearly no immune from such abuse both as victim and as abuser.
There is no country, no political party and no political leader that can claim
immunity or impunity; none of us is free from significant responsibility for
both over actions and for omissions to stop decision, actions and failures to
act on which we all, and especially our grandchildren depend.

Of course, these ideas
are idealistic, even illusory; nevertheless, there is a growing awareness and
consciousness that the world is headed in the wrong direction and that only
through concerted and sustained argument and action in opposition to the many
threats (also opportunities, if we are open to that notion). They will be
scorned with phrases like “what is this writer smoking?” in order to discredit
the source. They will be laughed off as immature, naive, impractical and
apocalyptic and therefore worthless.

However, we can no
longer depend on political, institutional, corporate or religious leaders to
‘carry the ball’ on our behalf. They are all operating from a premise that
their job, their reputations and their futures depend on their obsession over
micro-issues, while letting the macro issues wither from inattention on the
vine of collective consciousness.

This is a time in human
history when the world has become a ‘village’ and every member within that
village has a voice, a brain and a conscience....all of which are desperately
needed in order to set a global agenda of both policies and processes to
achieve those policies.

Nationalism,
parochialism, religious differences, linguistic and cultural
differences....these all have to give way to common, determined and sustained
initiatives to preserve the potential lives of our grandchildren....and while
our differences may and indeed will enrich our collective decisions, they must
not be permitted to block the process. And our shared historybooks will have to include those chapters in
each people’s story that embarrass, that enrage and shame the people. Stories
about secrets, national, familial, communal, ecclesial, from all theatres of
our lives will have to be exhumed from the vaults of our locked memories.
Stories that point fingers, accompanied by stories that point fingers will have
to find the light of day and the drum beat of the keypads, the sound waves of
the microphones and the images generated by the cameras.

And this release must
not be analogous to the current libellous and ascerbic bullying that pervades
the internet. Telling the truth, ironically, is not something to be feared. In
fact, the very opposite is true. We are in most danger when we are in denial or
in simple ignorance of the full complexities of a situation. And those with
titles of power can no longer be permitted to determine what information is
released to the public. That decision rests with each citizen, as does the
responsibilityfor its release, taking
extreme care to tell only the truth, nothing but the truth so help us all, God.And then, today, September 16 we find the following encouraging report in the Toronto Star:

The “leap manifesto,” signed by more than 100 actors, musicians, labour unions, aboriginal leaders, environmentalists and other activists, aims to pressure the next federal government to wean Canada entirely off fossil fuels in as little as 35 years and, in the process, upend the capitalist system on which the economy is based.

The drivers of the manifesto are best-selling author Naomi Klein and her husband Avi Lewis. It echoes the theme of Klein’s latest book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate, which was turned into a documentary of the same name, directed by Lewis.

Tuesday’s release of the manifesto coincides with the debut of the documentary over the weekend at the Toronto International Film Festival.

The dramatic transformation envisioned in the manifesto is in stark contrast to the pragmatic platform Mulcair is offering: balanced budgets, an openness to free trade deals, sustainable development of Alberta’s oilsands, no tax hikes except for a “slight and graduated” increase in the corporate tax rate.

Yet among the celebrity signatories are a number of prominent NDP supporters, including former Ontario NDP leader Stephen Lewis, father of Avi, who gave a rousing introduction for Mulcair at a campaign event in Toronto last month.

Others signatories who’ve declared their NDP sympathies include pop duo Tegan and Sara, singer-songwriter Leslie Feist, Canadian Labour Congress president Hassan Yussuf and Paul Moist, president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees.

Stephen Lewis doesn’t see his support for Mulcair as inconsistent with the manifesto, which he notes is also signed by people from other parties, including Roy McMurtry, a former Ontario chief justice and one-time provincial Conservative cabinet minister.

“For the New Democrats, it’s an extension of the kinds of things they’ve been talking about,” Lewis said in an interview.

“When Tom Mulcair talks about climate change and the importance of dealing with global warming in Canada and internationally, this is an extension — admittedly a dramatic and vivid extension — of the kinds of things that many of us yearn for.”

Starting with the premise that Canada’s record on climate change is “a crime against humanity’s future,” the manifesto argues the country needs to make the leap to getting 100 per cent of its electricity from renewable resources within 20 years and weaning itself entirely off fossil fuels by 2050.

This means adopting a new “iron law” of energy development: “If you wouldn’t want it in your backyard, then it doesn’t belong in anyone’s backyard,” to be applied equally to pipelines, fracking, increased oil tanker traffic and Canadian-owned mining projects abroad.

In the process, the manifesto envisions a transformation of the entire capitalist system into a Utopia in which the economy is “in balance with the earth’s limits,” jobs “are designed to systematically eliminate racial and gender inequality,” agriculture is “far more localized and ecologically based,” and low-carbon sectors of the economy, like caregiving, teaching, social work, the arts and public-interest media, flourish.

The signatories declare their belief in “energy democracy,” in which energy sources are collectively controlled by communities, rather than “profit-gouging” private companies.

They call for an end to “all corporate trade deals” that interfere with attempts to build local economies and regulate corporations.

In contrast to Mulcair’s insistence that running deficits puts an unfair economic burden on future generations, the signatories declare that “austerity — which has systematically attacked low-carbon sectors like education and health care, while starving public transit and forcing reckless energy privatizations — is a fossilized form of thinking that has become a threat to life on earth.”

The signatories assert that the money to pay for the transformation they envision is readily available. All it requires is for the federal government to end fossil fuel subsidies, cut military spending and impose financial transaction taxes, increased resource royalties and higher income taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals.

In Calgary on Tuesday night, Mulcair said the New Democrats welcome the ideas contained in the manifesto.

“I do understand the profound desire for change reflected in that document,” he said.

“We’ve talked about a cap and trade system, that is our policy, that’s what we will be doing.”

“Before the election, we are going to tell Canadians what we are going to do and once we are elected, we are actually going to do it, it has never been tried,” Mulcair said.